


What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

by seductiveturnip



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Drabble, Drabble Collection, F/F, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Headcanon, M/M, Mutual Pining, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prompt Fic, Prompt Fill, Recovery, Religious Guilt, Slow Burn, Wanda Maximoff Needs a Hug, issues with touch
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-11
Updated: 2017-02-03
Packaged: 2018-08-19 12:10:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8207053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seductiveturnip/pseuds/seductiveturnip
Summary: Drabble, headcanon and prompt fills - currently open to requests!Pairings I will write for you are in the tags, but happy to consider others if you ask :)*title from the Raymond Carver novel*





	1. Introduction & Index

Hey everyone! I'll be posting here a collection of prompt fills or headcanons from my tumblr.

Tags show couples I am definitely willing to write, (my favourites being Bucky/Wanda, Sam/Sharon, Steve/Peggy, Clint/Natasha, Natasha/Sam, friendship!Bucky/Steve) but if you message me (preferably on my tumblr but in the comments is fine too!) with a pairing or brotp request, I'll definitely consider it! Please don't be mad if I don't want to, though :3

My three absolute no-nos are romantic!stucky (but pleaseee gimme all the friendship stucky though!!), buckynat and scarletvision.

 

 

**Index**

 

[1\. Introduction](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8207053/chapters/18804620)

[2\. Bucky/Wanda - Prompt: "tell me a winterwitch story"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8207053/chapters/18804602)

[ 3. Bucky/Wanda - Headcanon: "dancing is Bucky and Wanda's 'thing' "](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8207053/chapters/19287979)

 [4\. Bucky/Peggy (+Steve) - Prompt: "Bucky loved Peggy First"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8207053/chapters/19671619)

[5\. Bucky/Wanda - Prompt: "When they lose their religion"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8207053/chapters/20295376)

[ 6. Bucky/Wanda - Prompt: "Crush"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8207053/chapters/21614534)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> talk to me on my tumblr! seductiveturnip.tumblr.com


	2. Bucky/Wanda - A Story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: tell me a winterwitch story

i. Bucky keeps a notebook – writes things down he should remember when he can’t hold onto it himself. Inside, there’s a page titled ‘avengers’ in shaky, capital handwriting, and close to the bottom of the list: _Wanda Maximoff; Sokovia; brown hair; mind control can move things with her mind; not hostile; dangerous; nice_

ii. For Bucky, he doesn’t see her as a handler or a hero or a soldier. He recognizes in her another asset. An equal. And this is almost comforting to him. He is skittish and displaced in this facility of whole people when he himself has spent so long being degraded into a mere weapon. But in her, he recognizes himself. She looks at him, and understands. With the two of them, there is no judgement. No fear of overstepping, of being punished by a handler. They each see themselves as animals, and there is some comfort in recognizing the same breed of evil in another.

iii. They run into each other on sleepless nights, bask in comfortable silence, exchange gentle conversation. (YOOOO [this short little fic here](http://sicxriius.tumblr.com/post/145727863900/five-times) is the exact headcanon of what I think their late night run ins would look like). She’s the only person who Bucky isn’t afraid is going to handle him, and vice versa. Besides, they don’t seem afraid of each other either, even though they probably should be. They’re both weapons. They’re both bad people.

iv. But Wanda, Wanda to Bucky is so unyieldingly kind. She is so gentle and so perceptive and aware, and she is so _good_ and so desperate to help and give that suddenly he knows that they are nothing alike. Maybe she’s also an asset. A weapon. But… she’s so much more than that.

v. But then for Wanda, she feels the same. Wanda believes herself to be a monster, a volunteer, a wicked girl who bought her fate upon herself. She thinks herself the embodiment of destruction. Bucky, who never asked for any of this, he must think her disgusting. And he doesn’t see it, how selfless he is, how decent, even if he vehemently denies it. She feels undeserving of his company, of his tentative trust.

vi. There’s this thread that binds the two of them together, and they always almost unconsciously make sure to be in each other’s space. They can so often be found walking around the avengers facility, just sort of strolling an enrapt in conversation, or cocooned off somewhere with their heads bent together, or sitting on the sofa in the early hours of the mornings, purple stamps under their eyes from lack of sleep and just enjoying each other’s company in comfortable silence.

vii. Bucky would come and go in the Avengers facility as he pleased. He gets restless, so he’ll slip out for a few days or weeks to think or just escape from when the walls start to close in on him. Wanda, by contrast, I think would also get restless but be too afraid to put herself in a situation with a lot of people, too afraid of what she could do to them, and I think some of the Avengers would discourage her because of Lagos and all. But Bucky comes and goes and sometimes he’ll go on a walk with her or sit next to her when she’s allowed to go to synagogue and look at the art or read a book.

viii. like I don’t want to label it exactly as a friendship because I feel like they would have a very sort of intense, deep-seated mutual understanding of one another that would kind of transcend a typical friendship.

ix. They spend so long trying to outrun sleep – nearly every night spent together on the sofa is calm silence, waiting for the sun to come up – but it catches up with them. They decide to sleep in turns. The nightmares come for them all the same, and when Wanda wakes up screaming, Bucky gets her water and makes sure she drinks the whole glass, and she won’t stop saying his name, saying his name like a touchstone.

x. Whenever he’s in the same room with her, he always put himself between her and the windows or door, and everyone thought at first it was so he could have a clean exit but what they don’t know is that he’s always there so if there’s an attack, a sniper or someone, he’ll be hit first.

xi. Every day is kind of a bad day, but one day Bucky gets a really bad flashback and he punches a hole in the wall and even Steve cant calm him down and Wanda comes in and bandages him and presses her mouth to the cotton of the cloth and feels the warm of blood beneath and says over and over that that is not who he is, reminds him that he is more, he is more, they took everything and he is going to take it back, he is here, he is here, he is here, and he wants to ask her if she thinks he’s a monster but he meets her eyes and she’s looking at him like he’s a person and it makes him feel so full in this moment when he feels so grotesque that he doesn’t want her to think any less of him and he doesn’t say a word.

xii. They tell each other everything. He tells her every stray moment he can remember, she tells him everything in her life he wasn’t there for. They spend days cocooned away, reminding one another to eat, sitting on the floor, on the couch, sleeping in turns – they can never sleep at the same time, too scared to close their eyes, because memories wait for them in the dark but then maybe Wanda will turn to dust if he looks away, maybe Bucky will leave her alone and she’ll destroy everything by accident.

xiii. Bucky used to like things precise – 8.3 metres from the nearest exit, rise at 0600, I have 3 minutes and 11 seconds to get here etc. Wanda is so much more fluid, and being around her sort of disarms those protocols of his. She’s like colour spilling out of the lines.

xiv. It seems so odd, having been born and lived decades and wars apart, how they managed to find each other at all, their identical, matching piece.

xv. That’s how they are. They don’t talk about it, but they know, and everyone else knows.

xvi. He would burn down everything for her. He would crawl through miles of hell, barefoot, naked, bleeding, just to see the way she looked at him one last time. He knows this as a simple fact, the way he knows the Earth orbits the sun.

xvii. It’s been three years when Wanda finally understands. This was not something she ever had time to think about growing up – surviving was the priority. And the soft, tender parts in the meat of her heart – well, hydra cut that out. Or so she thought.

xviii. See, ever since she met Bucky, saw the way he looked at her and knew, it seems time has only become divided into Before Him, During Him, and dreadfully, one day, After Him. She sees him, and she sees herself, sees her longing, her relief, the way she would give her life for him, and she aches. When he laughs or touches her arm or looks at her the way he does, she wants to throw up or maybe just cry, and a lot of the time, she does cry. She thinks about all that was done to him, and she shatters the mirror across the room. He is the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen. The way he walks breaks her heart. For so long, she thought, she didn’t want to face the truth, the terrible truth that lay waiting for her. But when she figured it out, she hadn’t really been that surprised either.

xix. See, the problem is, you can take the kid from the poverty, but you can never really take the poverty from the kid. Great Depression Brooklyn. War-torn Sokovia. Bucky and Wanda grew up with empty stomachs and bitterly cold nights and then hydra gave them only pain. They’ve learned to be thankful for their lot. Not to want too much.

xx. And Bucky, Bucky’s been trying so hard not to want too much. When Steve first bought him in, his emotions were rampant, muddled, so primal that he could only differentiate if he was feeling _good_ or _bad_ (and that had made Steve cry but Wanda, Wanda, she understood, and she sat with him with a dictionary and the two of them learned all the different words for different emotions). They’re still rampant and muddled sometimes, but this, this is one of the only things he’s sure of, and he hates himself for it. He feels shameful for wanting more than he deserves, and he already feels like her caring about him at all is so much more than what he should be allowed. He remembers, one night her tears had been falling on his chest and it wasn’t the first time she’d ever cried on him but he held her head under his neck and whispered _I’m here I’ve got you I will never leave you_ and she cried harder and it suddenly all made terrible sense to him. He never _will_ leave her. Because she teaches him softness. She teaches him warmth. He adores her so much it makes a birds’ nest of his bloody, ruined heart. Because he’s selfish. Because he’s a coward. Because he’s a weapon that they’ve used in wars to tear down every good thing.

xxi. He tries to keep that greed buried. She’s already – so much. So much more than a man like him could ever ask for. How dare he. Some nights, she won’t run into him, because he’ll be in the gym with a punching bag until his knuckles split, like maybe he can bleed her out of him.

xxii. Here it is. She loves him. She loves him so much her ribs ache with it. She loves him and she’s always loved him and without him she feels like she’s walking around sawed in half. She loved her brother and her parents and she loves Steve and Clint but this – she loves Bucky with the kind of enormity that makes her feel small. And Bucky… Bucky is terrified of the things he would do for her. He would start a war for her. He goes ballistic at anyone in the field who even looks at her the wrong way. He’s burning up like an ancient sun and it’s going to ruin him, this he knows.

xxiii. A year later, Bucky tries to leave. He’s been getting bad and he thinks his code words might be working again, and he’s been thinking about taking Wanda with him, because he needs her, because nothing makes sense without her, and he knows that leaving her here will hurt her, he knows, but he also knows that she’ll be better off, but she catches him before he’s about to leave and she has bags under her eyes and her hair spilling down her back and she is staring at him with tears pouring down her cheeks in silent fury and he wants to kiss her forehead and her cheekbones and her shoulders and every one of her fingers and everything she is everything, and sometimes he’s still not very good with his words and all he can manage is “I’m sorry,” and he is, he really is, but she’s so furious and miserable that her scarlet is glowing around her and she says, “let me come with you,” and he wants to rip out his heart, shake it like a magic 8 ball, ask it if he’s doing the right thing because she looks so broken right then, and she crosses the room and scarlet sparks are leaping from her skin but she holds his head in her hands and he flinches so hard she drops them and he wants to apologize and say it’s not her, its him, and he wishes he wasn’t so fucked up so he could love her right, and he wishes and he wishes and he wishes and all he can say is “ _please_ ,” and she says “if you go, you.. You might as well put me back in one of those labs, if you go, you’re taking all of me with you,” and he says, “don’t. don’t say that to me. Just because you’re angry doesn’t mean you can be cruel” and he thinks she might slap him when she chokes, “you think _I’m_ being cruel?!” and he doesn't think he’s never going to recover from this, and then she stands on her tiptoes and hugs him so hard with more fierceness than he ever thought she was capable of and he stands there a second shaking with the way his body recoils from touch but what he doesn’t know is how violently she loves him that she curls her entirety around him in spite of the way her body screams at her to run and hide and protect herself from the threat of physical contact. They cling to each other like that so long and then finally “you terrify me,” Bucky says into her shoulder, so quietly he wonders if she heard it, and then she stiffens like she’s been punched in the gut, like maybe all these years she’d been wrong to think that anyone could ever see her as anything more than a monster, another hydra experiment, but he crushes her further to him and says over and over “you terrify me,” and Wanda just thinks _oh oh oh oh_ and he looks her dead in the eye and they’re both _so close_ , two puzzle pieces slot together, and her breath is mingled with his and they’re so close and they’re both shock-still and unmoving and sick and aching with it and Bucky feels like he’s falling off the train all over again and he can feel Wanda’s tiny heart beating against his own chest and after minutes tick by he feels her lip, so painfully soft, graze against his and the contact is like an electric shock and they lean into each other so slowly and then they’re kissing, and they’re kissing like they’re dying, all salty tears and desperation like a plea and an apology. She’s clasping his neck so hard he thinks she may strangle him and minutes later, eons later, he knocks something with his foot and they break apart and Wanda realizes they were both holding their breath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also read/reblog on tumblr: http://seductiveturnip.tumblr.com/post/151308098642/tell-me-a-winterwitch-story  
> talk to me or send me all the prompts on my tumblr: seductiveturnip.tumblr.com
> 
> comments are always so appreciated :)


	3. Bucky/Wanda - Dancing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Headcanon: dancing is Bucky and Wanda's 'thing' "

i. We know that in the 1940s Bucky loved to dance ok so he would’ve gone from childhood to dance halls or church dances and we know he had this boyish charm about him with the ladies and he was always their pick for a dance partner because he was so good and ‘that Bucky Barnes is real charming and the best partner out of all them good for nothings’ and he liked the girls and the dancing was good fun and some guys would call him ‘twinkletoes’ but he’d just laugh and he’d go with Steve on double dates and he’d loosen his tie and snap off his suspenders and he’d be doing the lindy and all that  and even during the war he was a hit with the nurses and the USO girls and all the Howlies would be like _damn Sarge I didn’t know you could dance like that_ and he’d be grinning the rest of the night like a little kid all proud.

  
ii. But Bucky’s not that boy anymore.

  
iii. Wanda by contrast grew up in war-torn Sokovia. For her everything was about surviving and making it to her next birthday alive. She didn’t get to unwind, to appreciate, let loose. Once she saw two young children dancing in the street, their feet bare, or watched how her father would twirl her mother when they passed a busker on a street. But Wanda didn’t dance.

  
iv. Bucky has trouble these days holding on to happy memories from his previous life. Christmas with his family. Going with Steve to Coney Island. Twirling a pretty girl and dancing until sweat tacked shirt to skin and he could barely walk straight and feeling young and alive and invincible. He doesn’t remember how to dance, but he’s sitting with Wanda and he says out of nowhere, “I used to like dancing,” in this sudden realization, and Wanda looks back at him and says, “I used to wish I could.” 

  
v. The problem for both of them is getting physically close to other people. Wanda makes herself small, tries to take up as little space as possible, thinking that maybe if she curls into herself then the magnitude of her powers won’t explode out of her. She keeps an arms-length distance from everyone around her and flinches violently when Steve or Clint reach for her out of reflex. She’s terrified of herself. She’s terrified of anything that reminds her of how doctors used to prod at her and how hydra henchmen used to discipline her. Bucky is the same. Every gesture and movement poses the threat of attack and he constantly expects pain.

  
vi. But they’re set. They’re so set on this simple task. Bucky wants to try dancing, because he thinks he’s supposed to like it and he just wants his body to feel like his own and so does Wanda, who feels like a stranger in this nuclear bomb of a body and wants to feel like its hers before it was property of hydra, and Bucky wants to do it and she wants to help him: he’s a kindred spirit, his battered soul identical to hers, and the glimmer of hope in his eyes makes her feel warm all over.

  
vii. It’s hard at first. He is unwilling to grasp her hand with his metal arm, afraid he’ll crush her tiny bones in his iron palm. Her body is rigid enveloped in his, prepared to shrink away at any sudden movement. Every sudden gesture shocks them both and they spring apart. They spend two hours, just standing there, testing the waters and inching away, relearning what it is to be touched without being hurt.

  
viii. Wanda recalls him mentioning he used to listen to Billie Holliday and she instantly takes to the music and he smiles sadly when he finds her listening to it and that’s what they first try dancing to, mostly just swaying gently against each other and Wanda still finds a way to step on his toes and she apologizes profusely but for some reason he finds that his body which he finds so difficult these days to claim as his own has not assumed the offensive. He looks at the ground and keeps telling her its fine, and he’s surprised, because he’s not really lying.

   
ix. they both concentrate _so hard_ and when they start off they leave so much room for Jesus om g because they’re terrified but also 1940s!manners and eastern european!etiquette

  
x. His body remembers, so he’s better at it than her. He gets ideas, remembering flashes, and always checks with her first. “I’m going to twirl you now, is that okay?” “I think I can dip you, if you’re okay with that.”

  
xi. It’s because of this that they’re really the only other people that they each are comfortable being close to. It’s upsetting for Clint and Steve who want to express affection to Wanda and Bucky respectively that it can’t be them but they’re so happy to see this enormous breakthrough for both of them.

  
xii. Bucky and Steve will be in the elevator and the elevator music will play and Bucky will sort of hum softly under his breath and think about Wanda

  
xiii. They’re still sort of just leaning into each other and swaying and Wanda usually tucks her head under his chin or rests against his chest and will mumble to him very softly.

  
ixx. When he dances, his mind can settle into steps and patterns that aren’t military protocols. He can’t relive those nights in the dance halls, but he loves dancing now for an entirely different reason. Because there’s an intimacy now that he has with Wanda, and knowingness, a way their bodies, quivering with uncertainty, press together and finally soften to a sense of comfort, of tenderness, of closeness. Stark has a party and Natasha teases Bucky, says she hears he was a dancer back in his day, and she’s really just teasing but he doesn’t love dancing anymore the same way the Bucky Barnes of then did. He loves dancing now because he loves dancing with and being with Wanda.

  
xx. It’s a gateway. Slowly, slowly, Bucky can hug Steve without totally freaking out. Clint and Laura can kiss Wanda’s forehead without her curling into a fetal position. Their bodies understand. Touch does not always mean violence. They taught each other that.

  
xxi. They get better at it. She’s always a little clumsy and his metal arm is always a little stiff and unwilling but now they crave the warmth of each other’s touch, the calmness of being enveloped against each other. It’s their thing. On sleepless nights, they’ll sway together in the refrigerator light to a silent tune. At formal events, they’ll press together tightly amidst all the other dancers, standing out from the others in the intimacy of their gestures and so clearly in a world of their own. Their fingers dance across each other’s skin, fluid, gliding, uncertain but soft. _Can I twirl you?_ – Bucky asks. _Can I touch you here?_ – Bucky asks. And Wanda always assures him its ok. He can hold her with his metal arm. He can dip her and yes, then he can kiss her.

  
xxii. One night, Bucky takes her to a dance hall in Brooklyn. He can make new memories now, ones that aren’t covered in shadows.  
   
 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also read/reblog on tumblr: http://seductiveturnip.tumblr.com/post/151129100392/headcanon-dancing-is-kind-of-bucky-and-wandas  
> talk to me or send me all the prompts on my tumblr: seductiveturnip.tumblr.com
> 
> comments are always so appreciated :)


	4. Bucky/Peggy (+Steve) - Bucky Loved Peggy First

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Little idea nugget I had the other day~ Bucky loved Peggy first.

 

i. Peggy was a liaison from the British government to help the SSR, and she was serving under Colonel Phillips. after Project Rebirth Phillips was assigned to take the SSR to Europe to fight hydra and he made Peggy and Howard a part of his staff. so Peggy goes to Europe, leaving Steve Rogers behind in America for his USO tour. Steve Rogers, the skinny boy from Brooklyn who looked at her and saw something worth looking at. Steve Rogers, whose face she pictures, the same now even with a different body, with his twinkling blue eyes and serious mouth, his artist hands. she wonders if she’ll see him again, now that the rest of the world has its hands on him. and she finds herself hoping she does - Steve, so sincere and the kind of good that can’t help itself, smiling at her sweetly and making her feel warm all over. but then he’s gone and Peggy has her orders and he says “until next time, agent Carter,” and she finds herself eagerly awaiting for next time.

  
ii. Peggy finds herself in Europe with the 107th. It’s early 1943 and she’s surrounded by all these men who either look at her like an ice lolly or something they scraped off from under their shoe and most of them have tried hitting on her with little to no success.

iii. At some point, Phillips starts working with the higher ranking officers and that’s when she meets Sergeant Barnes, who’d only been on the front for a few months or so but had passed his training at Camp McCoy in Wyoming with flying colours and was supposed to be the best shot of the entire 107th.

  
iv. And he’s so _polite_ and he’s all schoolboy charm and the perfect manners of a boy raised by harsh, strong women who’d whack him if he gave them lip and he literally _kisses her hand_ when he introduces himself and she raises her eyebrows and that smug grin on his face really grounds her nerves but she finds herself smiling back at him if only for a moment, and she gives him a sharp dismissal and he winks as he goes back to his duties.

  
v. She’s met his gaze around the base a couple of times, or seen him showing off or trying to impress her, but they haven’t really been given any assignment together yet and one night he marches right up to her with a few of his men flanking his side who look thoroughly terrified of her and he’s a little tipsy but still with that boyish grin as he spouts some rehearsed bullshit in her ear so only she can hear about how the nazis will never get him but _he might just die if he never knows the touch of a woman like her, Agent Carter,_ and she snorts and bids him goodnight and he watches her leave with this dopey expression on his face like she’s just paid him the highest honour and when she passes his other men on the way out she tells them they ought to have their eager little puppy desexed before he starts humping the furniture.

  
vi. She gets more assignments with the 107th and starts seeing more of him. he flirts and teases and pulls on her curls and she’ll ignore him or tell him off all the while hiding her tiny smile behind her hand and when she catches him looking at her, the tips of his ears turn bright red and she can’t deny that he’s a very charming sort of person even if he probably knows it.

  
vii. The first time she lets him kiss her, he’s so excited that the kiss is kinda sloppy and he stops and says “wait, wait, I can do better than that,” and she must admit, Barnes is as good a kisser as he is a marksman. Bucky doesn’t stop grinning for a week.

  
viii. Peggy likes him, she does. he’s funny and bashful and absolutely worships her, and maybe some nights his warm, rushed hands can chase the fear and loneliness away and she can forget where they are, but at the end of the day, she still thinks about skinny little Steve Rogers and his softspoken sincerity all the time, and Barnes is just a boy and she doesn’t want to get attached - there’s a high turnover rate for men in his position and she thinks of all the men she’s already lost to this war and she’s happy to indulge herself with a few small trysts but she can’t let herself feel more for him than this.

  
ix. But Bucky’s never really thought like that - Bucky’s all about living in the moment and grabbing life by the balls, do first, think about the consequences later. and now he’s in the middle of this miserable war with a crush on his Colonel’s right-hand woman and she’s beautiful and she’s whip smart and can do ten times the push-ups he can and he’s just so _in awe_ of her and any time of day she gives him feels like a blessing. he knows she keeps him at a distance - she’s always short and brisk with him, and she never really tells him anything about herself no matter how often he asks, but he understands, and he doesn’t really mind - he just counts himself lucky a woman like agent Carter seems the slightest bit interested in him, just a dock hand from Brooklyn with a smart mouth.

  
x. And Bucky’s such a _little shit_ like Peggy gets shot in the leg one day in the field and and Bucky whips out a thread and needle and just sort of gives her this apologetic smile and says “this is gonna hurt” and she’s like “no, you’re not touching my leg, where’s the doctor” and he’s like “a couple miles away, but my ma taught me how to sew real good so you’re in good hands” and that smile she finds so charming is starting to look infuriating and she concentrates on his face while he works, furrowed brow in concentration and covered in dirt but still devastatingly handsome and when he’s done, he grins at her like he’s just won a medal and there isn’t a rain of bullets around them and he says, “there you go Carter, perfect. pins look good as new..” and she really wants to slap that grin off his stupid lovely face and she just seethes our through gritted teeth “you are _impossible_ ” and he just shrugs his shoulders because she’s told him this a thousand times before and responds in a matching tone “and you are _gorgeous”_ and then she really does slap him.

  
xi. And then the 107th are sent off to Azzano and Peggy’s been saying goodbye to all these men for months every time they leave on assignment, she’s been saying goodbye to Bucky for months and never expecting him to ever come back but he always does except this time he doesn’t and it stings a lot more than she thought it would.

  
xii. What’s left of the 107th come back to base and give intel on how many died and how many were captured and eventually Peggy has to help Phillips with the paperwork of marking soldiers who are MIA or KIA and she feels her heart drop through her stomach as she marks down _Sgt_ _. James Barnes._

_  
_ xii. And then one day Steve Rogers rolls into camp and she was always a little stuck on Steve, and he’s asking Phillips in his tent about his best friend Bucky, and it suddenly clicks and she decides to help Steve get to Austria because Steve was meant for more than being a dancing monkey, and Steve was meant to lead them towards victory in this war, and Steve so desperately wants to get his friend back with a desperation she’s never seen before and maybe a tiny little part of her hopes that Sergeant Barnes is ok, and she wants to help Steve, and she wants to do something good, and she wants to contribute, and she never agreed with leaving all these captive soldiers in Azzano and she so desperately wanted to help these poor men she’d spent the last few months with who’d been abandoned by their generals, so she’s ready to go and Steve smiles at her like she’s the sun, and then he disappears off the helicopter and into the snow and Peggy had never been one for religion but she finds herself praying he comes back to her.

  
xiii. When Steve comes back, he is radiant with victory, all the kindness and selflessness and loyalty of the inside finally reflected on the outside and she’s so proud and deliriously happy to see him and to see all the soldiers alive, sickly and broken but alive, and so happy to have been a part of something _good,_ something that _meant something,_ and she wants to throw her arms around Steve and kiss him senseless and she marches right up to him and looks at him, all bravery and bright eyes and her perfect match, says “you’re late,” and he quips bright back “couldn’t call my ride,” and he’s beautiful, beautiful like he was the first time she ever saw him, but Bucky’s standing just behind him looking skinny and empty and destroyed, watching Peggy look at Steve in a way she never looked at him.

  
ixx. And Bucky, he’d spent the last few months strapped to a table wishing that he’d just die only to have his skinny, small best friend Steve Rogers who is neither of which anymore storm the building and save his life, and he gets back to camp and sees Peggy, who he hasn’t seen in months, looking at Steve like he hung the moon in the sky and in that moment he doesn’t know if he’s more proud or more hurt, and he yells “ _lets hear it for Captain America"_ and he cant help thinking about how it was always him that had to look after Steve and how Steve and his kindness and loyalty was always something he could keep to himself in a way but now, everyone sees him, everyone is proud of him, and Bucky’s disappeared into the crowd, Steve doesn’t belong to Bucky anymore, he’s too big for him now, and even Peggy is just looking straight through him as if he doesn’t even exist. he didn’t even know they knew each other.

  
xx. And then he makes a pass at Peggy right in front of Steve at the bar because she looks so beautiful and he thinks, you know, I’m still me, I feel okay right now, maybe I can still be that guy, but he’s practically aiming for the rejection because even before all this, Peggy would never even bat an eyelash at him in front of the other men and that was their thing, sneaking around in tents and forests so why would now be any different? Maybe because of what he went through, being captured, maybe she’d take pity on him and give him all her attention, but that’s not Peggy and he knows that’s not Peggy, she’s been in this war a lot longer than he has and she used to tell him “stop moping Barnes, get to work!” and he’d pull on her curls and she’d bat his hands away with a grin but now it’s like he’s not even there, she’s looking at Steve and talking about the right partner and he jealously thinks that Steve is a horrible dancer and it’s Bucky who was always the best, and he cant help himself when he mutters “i’m turning into you, its like a horrible dream,” but Steve just laughs it off, laughing, says “maybe she’s got a friend,” but Bucky knows that Peggy was only friends with him and dum dum and a few other men anyway.

  
xxi. The three of them are in each other’s spheres for a year in a half with the howling commandos shutting down hydra bases. he and Peggy are friendly and he stills flirts with her and pulls on her hair and she smacks his away and calls him infuriating but its just not the same, and Bucky gets a bullet in his chest one day and Peggy grins down at him and asks if anyone’s got any needle and thread, but Steve’s got the medic and holds his hand the entire time.

  
xxii. And he wants to be happy for him because if anyone deserves Peggy its Steve and if anyone deserves Steve its Peggy, and he knows what the two of them had was fleeting and hopeless and neither really thought they’d survive very long anyway but

  
xxiii. Bucky loved her first, and nobody even knows.

  
xxiv. And Steve tells Bucky at night how gone he is for her, how he can’t stop thinking about her, how when this is all over he wants to marry her, and Bucky knows that ever since he was captured by hydra theres been a bitterness inside him, a meanness that wasn’t there before, a boy who was only used to being the shining light in his own life now forced into the shadows of all this pain and suffering that keeps him awake in the night, and he thinks he could tell Steve  but he just smiles and slaps his shoulder and says “i know, Stevie, I know.” he swallows his spite. he doesn’t say, “but I wanted her first.” he doesn’t say, “but I wanted her longer.” he doesn’t say how Peggy used to lecture him when he tried to turn on the charm or how she’d tell him to “stop whining or i’ll give you something to whine about” or how she only called him ‘Barnes’ because “Bucky is a child’s name” (and yet she calls Steve by his first name) and she once held his hand in the back of a van in France and told him if they survived this she was going to smack him until he saw stars. he doesn’t say any of that. because none of it ever meant anything. at least, it wasn’t supposed to. she’s Steve’s girl, probably always was, and to be honest, she was never really his at all. so Bucky just says, “i know.”

  
xxv. When Bucky died, the first thing Peggy did was find Steve. she held his hand while he wept, poured him glasses of the alcohol that wouldn’t get him drunk and stroked his hair. after an hour, she told him to get his act together - Barnes would want his decision respected. she knew that. and Steve knew that. “this war isn’t over Steve. let’s win it for him,” she whispered, and he nodded miserably, pressing his lips to her knuckles.

  
xxvi. Peggy spent that whole night crying. when the sun rose, she got dressed, put on her lipstick and reported for duty. There’s a war on - she’s too busy to mourn.

  
xxvii. Years later, when Peggy started SHIELD, she had _James ‘Bucky’ Barnes_ as the first named engraved on the wall of valour. this was his legacy, that boy with the bashful smile. James Barnes, purple heart.  
  


 


	5. Bucky/Wanda - Lost Religion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: lost religion. See full prompt below.
> 
> So pretty sure it’s canon in the movies or the comics that Bucky is catholic and Wanda is jewish so bear with me here because I’m a non-practising, heretic of a catholic suffering mad guilt so I’m probably gonna get this all wrong

>   
>  **FULL PROMPT** : _“You wrote something about Wanda losing her religion after Sokovia fell and it just got all these wheels turning in my head…Like I imagine on the really bad nights Wanda doesn’t know what else to do so she climbs out of bed, tears still staining her face and she gets down on her knees and folds her pretty hands and bows her head and she just starts mumbling in her mother tongue and she doesn’t really remember who she’s praying too but the reverence has found a way to creep back into her...heart and she thinks of the cathedral she and Pietro would run to sometimes because there was no other warm place to sleep and she thinks of the stained glass and the way the air felt holy and how she never felt so clean as she did in those pews. And I imagine one of these nights Bucky hears her mumbling in a language he can only partly understand and he catches snippets of her words but the ache that leaves her mouth is too familiar for him to ignore and he comes beside her and bows his head and he’s never been the praying type but for now he prays to whoever’s listening that this beautiful gem of girl, the woman who never deserved to be called a witch, he prays that somewhere in her heart there is still light and hope and that somehow she can reach that place and heal in a way he’s never known how to. And as they’re both praying beside each other Wanda looks up and sees him, gentle eyes closed and lips moving and forming words, she realizes that she’s never been…)alone and the holiness she felt in the church is nothing compared to what she feels next to Bucky.Lol that was really bad writing and super long like four messages but I needed to get that idea out, I’m sure you can do 10x more with it and 10x better._

 

i. I think a big thing for Wanda would be wanting to believe that there is something bigger than her. I mean like she’s so _powerful_ and _indestructible_ like she’s almost god-like herself and I think that would terrify her, and I think she would want to think there is something bigger than her, something larger. But not just that - meaning. She doesn’t want to think that bad things happen to good people just because life sucks and then you die. But that’s just it - she _wants_ to believe there’s something more, that this is all part of the plan and everything’s going to be okay, but she remembers the months on Dr. List's operating table or the explosion that killed her parents or all the dreadful things she and Pietro had to do to survive. she thinks of the scars on her body, the corpses she’s left in her wake. and she can’t. she wants to believe - but she can’t.

ii. She remembers how she used to pray, to beg, beg Him to kill her, release her from this earth, from this suffering. she remembers lying on a cold slab after the soles of her feet had been removed, muttering deliriously. “What kind of God does this to His child? didn’t you say we were all your children?” she whispered to the  cool, clinical air of the lab. “does that include me? does it still? did it ever?” Strucker let her keep her Star of David when she first came there, but some hydra agent ripped it from her one night when she was in her cell. _get on your knees_ he’d spat. _your God is waiting._ but now she was in the lab, bleeding out, and she just hummed “maybe i was never meant to meet you.”

iii. Sometimes Wanda gets really bad, real bad, vomiting in the middle of the night bad, scrubbing at her skin until it bleeds the same colour as her powers bad, and she aches with the desperation to believe, wants so much for there to be someone watching over her, protecting her, the way she felt when she was little and her parents took her to synagogue and she believed that everything in her life was going to be okay. and one day she finds herself uncoiling from her curled position on her closet floor and clasping her hands and trying to remember the conjugations of the prayers her mother taught her and she waits, waits, waits. waits for forgiveness, for death, for anything, not even happiness, just a little less pain.

iv. One of these nights, Bucky is patrolling the hall outside her room. it gives him a sense of comfort, of duty. he is an asset without orders and sometimes he itches with his lack of purpose. and one of these nights, he hears her voice, soft and aching and pleading, drifting out from underneath her door and he recognizes some of the words, some of the phrases, from his competent Sokovian, and something small and sad inside him twists viciously. Wanda told him one day she lost her religion after the civil war in Sokovia and nothing had ever made him so sad - Wanda, who was so spiritual and forgiving and sacred in everything she did, was at times so full of hope that it made him want to weep that this was yet another part of her small, sad life that had failed her, that she had gradually lost belief in a God as well. that she was deprived of even that. and now, he hears the desperation in her voice and he knows that ache, knows that pain, knows from his own long ago pleading on operating tables and cells for his own God to just release him or kill him.

v. He knocks softly. “Wanda?” he mumbles. “it’s Bucky.” there are a few beats of nothingness before the lock clicks and the door opens with a glow of red, and Bucky steps inside. she’s huddled in the corner of the room in the plain cotton nightdress she sleeps in, her dark hair tangled and her eyes wide, shadowed, but watchful, so watchful, her hands clasped in prayer.  and he finds himself coming to sit beside her (he won’t touch her yet though - he knows she doesn’t always like it, and he’s no good with it either). he clasps his own hands. he was never any good at praying: the boy he used to be used to get smacked with a ruler for pulling faces in Sunday School prayer, and the man he is now believes that if there is a God, He hasn’t been listening to him in a long time. but now he finds himself bowing his head and praying to whoever’s listening that if there is someone there, someone bigger than all this, that it is They who must beg for Wanda’s forgiveness. for crucifying her on a scientist’s cold slab. for the holes in her hands, the bruises, for everything they’d taken. for letting her lose faith. because isn’t that all who Wanda is, at her core? faith, and hope, and belief? and what’s left for her if she has nothing to trust all that in?

vi. And in a way, aren’t Bucky and Wanda the lonely messiahs? Bucky went to war so his country would be free; Wanda protested and took part in uprisings so Sokovia would regain its peace and independence. Bucky was taken and remade as a weapon, as the ghost in the machine that allowed his country to function; Wanda donated her mind and body to science to protect the country she loved so much. Bucky and Wanda, who died and were reborn, who took on the sins of their countries so that humanity might be saved. Bucky and Wanda, both ostracised by their God, the prodigal children, the holy, the abandoned.

vii. And when Bucky looks at Wanda, all he sees in light and warmth and redemption, the kind of reverence he never felt in morning chapel. she is the only one with whom he plays confession room, and she forgives him, she always absolves him of everything, and for a little while, it fills him with so much peace he can believe everything is going to be okay. she is the closest he has ever felt to divinity. she reaches for his shaking hands, and he swears he is blessed. he aches for her like a religion.

viii. So he’s not the praying type. but he prays now, with her, if just to chase away her loneliness, or in the case there is anyone listening who might kneel down and beg Wanda to forgive them for how they have made her suffer, for every single one of her nightmares. he prays now for her to heal. for that light within her to stay lit. for her to find her religion or not find her religion but find something that gives her something to hang on to. because if anyone deserves happiness, truly deserves it, it’s her. oh god it’s her. but she’s gone quiet now, and he opens his eyes to see her looking at him entreatingly, her face still damp. she glows in the dim warmth of her candlelight, holy and human all at once.

ix. Bucky is looking at her and he says “ _Wanda,_ ” like a prayer, and it always makes her feel so light, so _full_ , like the way the first rays of the sun spilled through the mosaic windows of the synagogue she and Pietro once slept in - the promise of something good, something bright, something full of grace. The promise of meaning. Of something bigger than her. And is this feeling not bigger than her, bigger than HYDRA and their labs and all man’s matchstick wars? Is this not why she is here? Is this not the reason for everything? - Bucky’s drowsy, early morning patience, his metal hand ghosting hesitantly above hers, his belief in her, his unconditional, quiet adoration, watching him smile like the sun bursting from behind the darkest of clouds. And her name, in his mouth like a prayer, like a hallelujah and an amen and the beginning and end of everything. It leaves her breathless, the edges of her vision glowing.

x. “The sky is empty,” she tells him, after a moment, after a century, and her heart burns with the finality of it. He stills, chokes out some small, pathetic noise. he looks as if someone has ripped out his throat. “I’m sorry. Christ, Wanda, I’m so sorry.”

xi. But she shakes her head. because she understands now she was never really alone. Bucky, who _has_ listened to all her prayers, who she has confessed all her sins to and still looks at her the same way in the morning, who makes her feel clean when she feels like she leaves her dirty handprints on everything, gives her so much more hope and belief and meaning and holiness than a silent god ever did. he has always listened. he has always forgiven. he has protected her, watched over her, sworn by her name. he has seen her at her worst, at her most terrible, and always thought her deserving of mercy. he is the promise of light, however dim and flickering. he is the promise of redemption, however difficult and strained. he is the truest thing she knows. and the way she feels for him is bigger than everything.

xii. He stays with her that night, the two of them coiled on the floor, him holding her inside of him, her prayers, her fears, her absolution, all with the same terrified fire burning within them both.  the passion, the violent sanctity of their love is of the highest realm - it’s something mere mortals could never touch. but they won’t say this yet: it’s not time for those kinds of confessions just yet. for now, the night hangs over them, and maybe it’s not happiness but it’s a little less pain. they cling to one another, slot together so perfectly that it would take an act of God to ever rip them apart.

 


	6. Bucky/Wanda - Prompt: Crush

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: a concept: bucky trying to be romantic to wanda but is really shy and clumsy so he stutters and drops the flowers for wanda etc etc and their first kiss omggg he's shy and just stood there, lips hovering above hers but he's too nervous to move and wanda just giggled before tiptoe-ing to kiss his him

i. They would have like a long-established relationship, like I don’t want to label it exactly as a friendship because I feel like they would have a very sort of intense, deep-seated mutual understanding of one another that would kind of transcend a typical friendship.  
  
  
ii. They’re both sort of calming influences on one another. He doesn’t judge. He makes her feel… tethered. Present. He’s gruff and silent and full of insight and sorrow and he doesn’t look at her like she’s a time bomb waiting to explode. And Wanda, well. Wanda doesn’t expect anything from him. She’s sweet, tearful. She wants to know what he thinks, him, not the ghost of Bucky Barnes, the thoughts of a dead man. She… wants him around. She makes him feel… safe. Or, safer than he feels with anyone else.  
  
  
iii. Of course, objectively, Bucky knows that Wanda is beautiful, but he doesn’t think about her that way. He sees  _her,_ her empathy, her kindness, the silent rage in her blood, the way she lives inside her own head. He knows she’s beautiful but he’s too jumbled up to think about those things and he sees her for who she is behind all that.  
  
  
iv. But then maybe someone brings it up one day, how lovely she is, and maybe he looks at her a little too long after that and when he turns back he sees that Steve is watching him with this enormous smile on his face and Bucky kind of looks away and Steve looks so happy he thinks he might be about to cry and it makes Bucky uncomfortable and he just says, “she’s… really nice,” and Steve is kind of choked up and he just says, “I know, buck, I know.”  
  
  
v. BUT THEN HE CAN’T STOP NOTICING IT? HOW SOFT HER HAIR IS AND HOW BEAUTIFUL HER HANDS ARE AND HOW THIS TARNISHED, GENTLE BEAUTY SHINES FROM EACH PART OF HER AND? LIKE HOW DID HE NOT SEE THIS BEFORE? And suddenly she’s just the prettiest thing he’s seen in ages and it makes him feel… normal.  
  
  
vi. Well, is this normal?? It couldn’t be. His chest feels heavy. His hand(s) are too warm to keep all to himself, like he’s burning up. He usually felt like he could talk to her about anything – they’d huddle together on sleepless nights, and he’d tell her every stray moment he could cling on to. “I remember… something… Steve and I were… maybe eleven, twelve..” And she told him about her family, her brother, her thoughts, something she read in a book. They learned the ins and outs of each other, learned where to press, where to dig, the curves and crevices of each other’s souls and found, unsurprisingly, how easily they slot together. Bucky was always surprised at how gentle he was with her. He didn’t know he could be.  
  
  
vii. AND NOW ITS ALL SAM AND STEVE’S FAULT FOR POINTING THIS OUT TO HIM BECAUSE NOW HE FEELS THIS SWELL OF ADORATION IN HIS CHEST ALL THE TIME AND HE FEELS LIKE HE CAN’T TALK TO HER ANYMORE BECAUSE HE KEEPS TRIPPING ON HIS OWN TONGUE

  
viii. He’s very good at stealing looks when he thinks she won’t notice I mean he’s an ex-assassin who’s really good at sniping and he’s a mad spy so he’s REALLY good at having a crush and no one finding out. Because she’s amazing, she’s everything, and there’s no way she couldn’t want him back.

  
ix. But she does. Oh, she does so much she feels nauseous with how much she aches for him.  
  
  
x. But she never had the opportunity to think about romance growing up, she was too focused on trying to survive. So she’s got no clue either so she just wallows and pines and wonders if she did something wrong because all of a sudden he’s acting really weird around her.  
  
  
xi. And she’s not so good at having a secret crush because again, she never had to think about this, but Wanda honest to god wears her heart on her sleeve and its blatantly obvious to pretty much everyone (EXCEPT BUCKY) that she’s gaga for him  
  
  
xii.  And Steve loves it honestly like maybe he gets too ahead of himself at some point and is like so happy because he feels like he and Bucky are twenty again and he’s watching Bucky charm some girl he really likes but this is the Bucky of now and he’s damaged and uncertain and HAS NO IDEA WHAT TO DO IN THIS DEPARTMENT AND TBH NEITHER DOES WANDA

  
xiii.  Is this ok, or does it make her weak? Is she allowed to feel like this? Does she deserve to?

  
xiv.  See like idk if he’d get her flowers I mean he’s a child of the depression and she grew up in poverty like I think that things like that would feel like something associated with wealth and excess but I definitely think he would get her some kind of talisman, like Wanda wears so many layers of clothes and jewellery and necklaces maybe he’d get her something like a cheap little necklace with a black cat on it because “every witch needs a black cat” (love that headcanon) something meaningful and sweet like that and she’s so touched that she gets all weepy and she asks him if he’ll help her put it on she he’s so anxious and mental for her his hands shake so badly clasping it around her neck that he drops it AND THAT’S WHEN WANDA FINALLY GETS IT and they are so scared and so brave and she throws her arms around him and they both really struggle with physical contact but if there’s something soft and warm in this and safe, so safe, and she just mumbles into his shoulder: “I’m very… attached to you.”

  
xv. Bucky stands outside her door one day, a million thoughts racing through his head, before he finally knocks. The door swings open a little too quickly, and Bucky thinks about the last 45 minutes he’s spent working up the courage to knock and how suddenly she answered the door and he realizes she knew he was there. She’d been waiting on the other side of the door waiting for him to approach, to make a move, too nervous to do it herself.  
  
  
xvi. They go on a walk one day. Just Wanda and him. Before they go, Bucky shaves. He brushes his hair. Steve can’t stop grinning like a proud dad.  
  
  
xvii.  “is it okay if I hold your hand?” Bucky asks her softly. Wanda smiles so sweetly he doesn’t think his heart will ever recover from the sight.  
  
  
xviii.  Its early morning they’ve spent the whole night sleepless and hiding from nightmares and everyone will be up soon she says very quietly, “I want to try something, okay?”  
  
  
xix.  And he’s sort of just standing there and Wanda’s edging forward and he’s too nervous and he’s terrified, he’s really terrified, what if he hurts her, and what if she hurts him, and what if it’s beautiful, because he can’t ever seem to hold on to anything good, and he doesn’t deserve this he doesn’t deserve any good thing, and what if he hurts her  _what if he hurts her_ , and what if he isn’t good at this, and he feels like he’s standing in the face of something huge and beautiful and breakable and he feels so undeserving, and he’s still standing there, and she’s inches away from his face now and she’s on her tiptoes and he can feel her breath against his skin and he feels drunk with it, and he can see that her lip is trembling, and his hands won’t stop shaking, and his breath is coming out in ragged gasps, and she takes his shaking hands and presses them against her lips and they kiss and its beautiful and its real and it hurts and when they finally pull away Bucky says, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry that was the first time.”  
  
  
xx.  The first time she tells him she loves him, he holds her head in his hands and cries for ten minutes straight

**Author's Note:**

> talk to me on my tumblr: seductiveturnip.tumblr.com


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